


(trapped) and aware of it

by phantasmicfish



Category: Alice in Wonderland (Movies - Burton)
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, greatly disturbed, murder with reckless abandon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:42:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28688853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantasmicfish/pseuds/phantasmicfish
Summary: What they do, Hatter tells her, is kill people.
Relationships: Alice & Mad Hatter (Alice in Wonderland), Red Queen/King, Tarrant Hightopp/Alice Kingsleigh
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	(trapped) and aware of it

**Author's Note:**

> AU! The characters are all very OOC.
> 
> Featuring: I don’t know what I was thinking + general randomness

The job is neat, printed small in the comer of a newspaper; she’d miss it if she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. 

_For Hire Assistant_ has nothing underneath aside an email address. Alice applies, Alice waits a week, and then she drives her car across three hundred and fifty two miles of desert without a single hesitation, printed out e-mail saying _Please come_ propped on the dashboard at her side. By the time her car rolls to a stop her radio is producing nothing but static, she’d kill for a glass of water, and it’s been three and a half hours since she saw her last cactus.

The man who steps out of the RV is sharp in a suit, tall, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a tangle of fire-red hair around his head. A badge swings lazily from a loop in his belt buckle, he holds a canister of what she assumes is coffee in one hand, and he doesn’t mind the fact that she ogles him for some good minutes before clearing her throat.

He stops short of her. Quickly and brazenly, his head swings up and down. “You’re the new girl?” And then, before she can respond, tosses a badge. When she catches it, he smiles. “I suppose it’ll do. I’m Hatter. Your name? If you have one. If you don’t, you can make one up.”

“Alice,” Alice says, with hesitation. She wants to pluck the canister out of his hand but it’s not presentable; then again, she feels nothing here is. “I’m Alice, yes, I’m new, and what exactly am I doing here?”

What they do, Hatter tells her, is kill people.

-

“Everyday it’s a new case, new place, new guy sent off in a body bag.” Hatter explains. They’re inside the RV, which is larger on the inside than the outside. Hatter sips his canister of coffee aggressively and appreciatively while he talks, often in between sentences. They’re standing in what looks like a kitchen, but there’s a hallway that extends to the side farther than Alice can see.

The plastic counter tops which frame the RV’s kitchen are stained rusty-bronze but bare. There’s a monster-sized tangle of wires hooked up to a monitor on the counter that looks like it’s from another century.

“That’s Chess’.” Hatter says, waving the canister and spilling some coffee on the floor, as if Alice is supposed to know who that is. “He deals with all the computer-thingies.”

“I deal with all the killing-people business, Queen and King clean it all up.”

“And, what do I do?” Alice asks. It is impossible to stop looking at him.

“What you do,” Hatter says with a feral grin, “is assist.”

-

Alice gets her first case an hour later. They drive Hatter’s car, parked behind the RV and somehow Alice didn’t notice it upon arrival; Hatter takes her to an apartment building three hours away.  
It’s tall with grey walls and a row of windows down the side. Each of the condo’s have a balcony that looks over a smoggy yet fairly clean city. 

Hatter walks past the doorman with a cheeky unreturned smile, they ride up to the fourth floor. It takes a while because he pushes all the buttons in the elevator, keeps tapping his shoes against the floor in some weird recreation of a dance Alice has never seen, humming with energy anticipatory.

Alice watches closely. The buttons Hatter pressed are 3, 24, 6 and 7, light up like little golden irises around the rim. She is excited at the prospect of killing people. She wants to do it herself.

Hatter doesn’t use any weapons. 

The man inside the condo isn't doing anything malicious or harmful; he’s cutting onions for soup. 

Hatter doesn’t use any weapons!

No, Hatter hollers and woops to indicate their arrival, Hatter talks to him, jovial, friendly, strangely, brackish; while he talks the man is choked till his lips frost blue and while he talks Alice watches with glittering, glowing excitement and while he talks the man is pinned and while he talks Hatter rips him apart. 

-

Afterwards, they ride the elevator halfway down, when Alice pushes _stop_ , freezing it in place. The elevator-box jolts once. 

Hatter sniffs. “What you do that for?”

Alice points at his chest. “You’ve a knife sticking in your chest.”

Hatter looks down on it. “Oh.” His eyes grow wide and his face looks paler. “I suppose that’s why we hired you. To assist.” He pulls the knife out and pitches his voice to a whisper, “Apparently, I was too messy.”

He buttons up his suit coat, hands Alice the knife. She wipes the blood off on a handkerchief from her handbag and puts it inside. Alice can still see the hole in his suit and the blood around the hole.

She makes him turn his suit jacket inside out and put his hands in his pockets which helps hide the blood stains when they walk out. The doorman frowns, but Alice smiles, and they get into Hatter’s car and drive away.

-

After the murder, Hatter and Alice go for a spot of tea.

Tea!

The RV has a room down the hallway which reveals a dusty, plastic table complete with plastic, high-backed chairs. No tablecloth, so the elegant boxed cakes and cinnamon rolls and teapots sitting on pale china mingle with the rising dust. 

“Oh, my.” Alice breathes.

Hatter swings himself into a chair with a great plop, it rattles the windows and the thin glass cake plates sitting on the table.

“ _Careful_ , dear.”

Alice turns around and sees a teenage boy standing in the doorway, glowering with his eyes. 

“ _Don’t_ destroy the china. Those are imported, you know.”

He is not as gorgeous as Hatter. His features are fuzzy at the edges, but she knows beauty can always be grown into. He wears a long stretchy toothy smile that belittles his harsh tone, strange combination. Alice isn’t sure if he’s joking or genuinely upset.

Hatter doesn’t care whichever, lazily brings his gaze upwards. “Do you want something?”

“ _Yes_ , for you _not_ to destroy the china.”

“Well I’d like a slice of cake, but that’s just me. Scooch.” Hatter shifts the boy aside with a hand so he can reach over for a slice of cake. On it there’s an orange carrot drawn in icing and a small green stem.

“Pass one to Alice, and oh, yes, that’s Alice. Alice, this is Chess. Computer-thingies, general dick.” Hatter says _dick_ delightfully, as if it’s a brand-new gift.

Chess’ eyes glare with menace. “ _I’m not_ your assistant, fucking twat,” he snaps. He speaks in a constant, slow drawl. “ _Dear_ Alice can get her own bloody cake.”

“Give her the cake, or I’ll shove this teacup down your throat.” Hatter says, conversationally.

Chess passes her a liberal piece of cake, chocolate cream. He backs away and glares at Hatter with his eyes, but that smile doesn’t leave his face; she’s starting to think it can’t. 

Alice looks between Hatter and Chess and the chocolate cream cake on her plate. “Thank you.” She says.

Hatter sips his tea. “For what?” He asks.

-

She gets her own room in the RV’s long hallway, fourth door. It looks exactly like a motel she once stayed in for some sort of event that was once important in her life. 

The bed squeaks loudly when she sits on it. There’s a bedside table, dresser, no shower. There’s a portrait of a caterpillar above the bed and a small window across from it. Alice peers outside and sees the torn up remains of her car, the edges of the metal blackened and rusting apart into the sand.

“Queen did that.” Hatter says. 

Alice recalls aweingly: Queen is clean-up.

“I must thank her.”

Hatter walks over to her and stands by the window. Alice hasn’t been able to smell the fire but now she can, right up against her nose and pushing on the glass, smoky burnt metal. She is so relieved. They both look out the window as her car is swallowed up by the dunes.

-

And so Alice meets Queen. She makes it a point to, because destroying her car seems so final, so symbolic, and Alice really is happy that the last vestiges of her old life are gone. Her car tied her to civilization, old civilization, and now it’s all dust.

Hatter tells her she won’t find Queen unless summoned and Chess just scoff-smiles when Alice does ask for directions. She traverses the hallway where everything is, twice, through doors and doors and doors, across mucky-grey carpet. The door at the end of the hall opens on the fifth try. Alice barges her way inside and earns many-much splinters.

They are in the lounge room. There is a TV and a couch and several plump lazy chairs. It feels both cozy and dingy, warmth mixing with stale air.

The woman named Queen is sitting in the farthest plump lazy chair, her prostitute-amount of makeup and bob of red box-dyed hair obscured in shadow. It’s very different from Hatter’s red hair. Hers is cheap, but sliced and contained. Alice’s knees are shaking at the sight.

She moves further into the room. “Thank you.” Alice says genuinely. 

Queen’s acknowledgement is notional. She raises an eyebrow, nonverbal, and Alice wants to get on her knees and bow. 

“What for?” When Queen speaks, her voice and lips ring with jewels. Sapphires, emeralds, rubies drop into the carpet. Worthy!! She looks at Alice now.

“Destroying my car.” Alice can not contain herself any longer. She drops to her knees and bows. 

Oh, royalty!

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

-

Their second case: drive three hours in a different direction, small cottage with a thatched roof, burly man with tattoos along his arms and forehead. Hatter rips him apart starting down and moving up; this time; he lets Alice take the left leg. She mimics Hatter, but her talking doesn’t work out too right and the man squirms… Alice ends up cutting the toes off one by one by one.

-

The door at the end of the RV hall now won’t shut. It refuses to. Alice feels honored. 

When they’re not killing people, Hatter and Alice and Queen watch reruns on the TV. Alice sits next to Hatter on the very center of the couch, she can feel the divet between the cushions under her butt. Hatter is playing with her hair, sectioning it with his hand. He’s not looking at the TV much, attention flickering.

Queen is in the plump lazy chair. Queen is always in the plump lazy chair. It’s got ugly lime and black swirls on it, fading away, yet when Queen sits, prim-backed, Alice gets the impression it’s paved with gold. Alice slouches on the cushions out of reverence, respectfully, to be literally lower than Queen.

When King sees Alice shrinking her shoulders, she asks, “What is this?”

“Don’t be jealous.” Queen says, dropping emeralds from her lips. Her eyes don’t break from the TV. 

King brushes a strand of white hair from her long, androgynous face. “I’m not.”

Alice looks up, sees King standing next to Queen. And if Hatter is gorgeous, Alice suddenly thinks, King is his counterpart, tall and angular and all pale whites, glowing so brightly Alice can’t tear her eyes away. So strange, so strange, that Alice didn’t notice King till now. 

“You won’t see her.” Hatter explains later, lazily waving his hand around and around. “Don’t see King unless Queen is around.” 

Alice hums. “Wherever does King go?”

“King goes lost.” Hatter breathes, and he sounds dreamy. “Lost in Queen’s resplendor.”

“Oh, _my_.”

To be lost in another’s resplendor!

-

Third case: Alice does the final blow on an old grandmother who was knitting, her yarn rolling off to the side in a dejected clump. Hatter is brusquely brushing and straightening his suit sleeves.

“You’re now bleeding.” Alice says.

“Am I?”

She points and hums. 

Hatter looks at where she is pointing. He removes the knitting stick from his chest. The grandmother had a grandson who was not very happy with them, and so it got messy. Hatter alway puts it like this, messy messy messy.

Alice pulls back Hatter’s suit jacket and shirt. Blood coagulates the fabric. Yet, his skin is unblemished, smooth, the muscles underneath it tough beneath her fingers. “You never scar.” Alice says softly. “How is that so?”

Instead of answering, Hatter brings a hand around the back of her neck and kisses her. He is a very good kisser and Alice wants to touch him as much as possible. She leans in, splays her hand on his chest, tastes blood on her teeth from his lips, and it’s thrilling to think about. 

The grandmother squealed before she took her last breath. The grandson cried fat tears. Hatter is a very good kisser.

They break apart. Alice shivers with pointed pleasure. They drive back and Alice sits in the passenger seat and Hatter grins and grins and grins. 

-

“Let’s go out for coffee.” 

Alice blinks at the words _go out_. “What?”

“Coffee. You do drink, don’t you?” And he stands up from the couch and leads them up the hallway to the kitchen.

The RV has a coffee maker on the counter. Alice stands in front of it feeling a swell of relief to be in the RV and not outside while Hatter growls. There is not a speck of lint on his suit.

“Work.” He tells the coffee maker on the counter, and the coffee maker just produces a lot of loud noises instead. Whiny and sad. “I said, _work_.”

“This is swell.” Alice observes.

“Is it?”

“Yes.” Alice says.

“Yes.” Hatter agrees. “It is _swell_ that on this day specifically I need coffee. And it is _swell_ that when I need coffee, the coffee machine. Won’t. Give. It. To. Me!” He punctuates each word with a kick, ramming his shiny Italian shoes into the counter on which the coffee machine stands.

Alice leans over, very conscious of Hatter so angry he’s now panting, chest rising and falling with that anger oh so visceral, and pushes a button to turn the coffee machine on. “There.” She pronounces. “Just needed a boost.”

“It’s not supposed to need that.” Hatter says, suddenly contained. He straightens the edges of his lintless suit. “It’s never needed that before.”

-

Another murder, another tea time.

Tea!

The glamor of tea is never lost on Alice. 

Queen is sitting in one of the plastic chairs at the tea table. King comes over and straddles her, the two make-out heavily against the table.

Alice stares, transfixed, appreciative of beauty-on-beauty in its natural form. 

King moans, her hands running up and down and under Queen’s shirt. Their making-out shakes the table and almost spills Alice’s tea.

“Knock it off.” Hatter says. 

King swings her long legs off. “Homophobe.” She teases.

“Hungry.” Hatter shoots back. 

Chess pads by and silently straightens the table.

-

Again: they’re in the elevator on the way down. Hatter was careful. He let Alice do the slicing and the dicing this time. She’s getting better at talking people apart. Hatter pushes buttons 6, 8, 9, and 19.

“You’re not quite right.” Alice says. 

“So you’ve noticed.” Hatter replies, with a grin.

She leans around him and pushes stop on the elevator. 

Hatter turns to look at her. “What? I wasn’t messy.” 

Alice cocks her head up at him. “I know.” 

Tension!

Breezily, Hatter slips one hand under her shirt, squeezes her breasts, round, full, plump, pink, expectant, waiting. Alice arches her spine as he pulls her shirt up and over her head, Alice shudders as he brings his mouth to suck on each breast, yes, yes. 

She can feel his tongue rubbing over her nipple, entire body ripe and prickling with pleasure. “Alice.” Hatter says, hums her name the entire time like he has to, impossible to stop, whispers against her skin.

When he bites her breast, she squirms against him, pinned by his hips and wrists and mouth, When he bites her breast, Alice screams and Hatter screams with her. 

-

The ninth, tenth, and eleventh cases Alice gets to kill all by herself and wring their necks bloody. 

Hatter cheers her on. 

He croos her name and it feels victoriously post-coital and she’s very, very giddy. They slip out the back at Alice’s insistence, because she doesn’t want to see another doorman or tenant or pedestrian slugging along the street.

-

And so:

“How do you decide who to kill?”

Hatter shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometimes people pay us to kill other people. When people hire us, we kill who needs to be killed.”

They’ve just had a great deal of sex and are sitting in bed. Alice is wearing her skirt and stockings, Hatter is naked.

Alice smiles. “I guess there is not much room for morals.” She looks up at the ceiling. “It would matter in the other world. Morals does not much matter here.”

“Morals?” Hatter says. He sits up. The sheet slips down and reveals his unmarked abdomen. “Morals?” He says again. 

“What do you mean, Alice. You’re all so bad.” Hatter cocks his head to the side. “Why are humans so bad!?” Suddenly, he grips her throat and yells.

Alice chokes, pushes at his fingers. She scrapes at his hand till he bleeds, loses her fingernails deep inside his fleshy palm. The edges of her vision blacken and she feels very swallowed, very shallow. 

Hatter’s eyes are flaming yellow orange red. 

A loud crash. Squeezing. Red. Air. Air air air. 

Queen pulls him off, and afterwards Alice sits up in bed and listens to Hatter scream like an owl and she coughs and she coughs and she coughs.

Oh, violence!

-

And so:

“How old are you?” Alice asks, in the shower.

Hatter grins at her. His hands aren’t bruised and Alice’s fingernails are growing back. He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “How old do you think?”

Alice stops shampooing her hair and looks at him appraisingly. Her hair is piled on top her head and covered in soap, Hatter grabs a strand and gives it a twirl. His eyes are flame-y and he has a wide smile, like he’s very, very excited to hear what she thinks.

“Twenty-six.” She guesses.

Hatter smiles wider.

“Upwards of thirty?”

His eyes bulge, and Alice steps into the stream of water so the soap runs out of her hair and blurs his silhouette under her eyes. The white sud rushes down the drain like it wants to leave and hits the tile. Splat. Splat splat splat.

-

And so-er:

The bathroom door is cracked, lock split down the middle. It opens easily when Alice turns it.

“Shut the door!” Queen demands, spitting amethyst and sapphires. One of them hits Alice squarely in the cheek.

Alice slams it close, sinks to her knees by sheer command. She drops down into a low bow automatically, and her fingers brush jewels. Hard, crinkly, shimmering; the salmon carpet is covered with them. Alice drags her gaze up. They hardly ever see each other in the RV now, and Alice is upset to upset her. “Forgive me.”

Queen is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, wrapped in a towel that covers her breasts to her thighs. Her beautiful head is in her hands and her hair is dripping a dark substance on the bath rug.

“What is the matter?” Alice asks.

“My hair won’t dye red.” Queen mutters.

Alice frowns. Queen sounds weak and it sounds wrong. She pictures the hair dye as a bad organ that won’t take. Rejected and ejected. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tell King.”

Alice swears up and down, even if she can’t see King on her own. She frowns again. Her knees are pale blobs under her blue-and-white dress. And now Queen’s hair won’t dye and she doesn’t see Chess anymore. 

“She’ll find out soon enough.”

-

Another case: the victim screams and Hatter just laughs and laughs and laughs.

-

“Queen’s hair won’t dye anymore.” Alice tells Hatter when it’s just them at tea time, because Queen didn’t mention anything about him. 

Hatter looks sad. “We’re all breaking here.”

Alice frowns. She doesn’t understand. “Breaking more-so?”

“Yes. We weren’t always like this. Not always. I come from a place far from here,” he says. “A place that’s a thousand times better than this _scum_.” He says the word again, harsher. “Scum.” His eyes grow wide and suddenly he’s talking through her, staring blankly into space.

“We’re losing ourselves, Alice. This RV’s the only thing holding us together, and… it’s breaking, too.” Raspy voice, so raspy.

Alice scoots her chair closer. It makes a harsh noise and tracks on the RV’s floor. “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back?”

“The hole’s covered up. Can’t go back if you don’t have a hole to fall through.”

Their knees bump under the table. “Tell me about it. The place you all belong to.”

He tells her.

It sounds like wonderland.

**Author's Note:**

> Drink tea with me on [tumblr](https://phantasmicfish.tumblr.com).


End file.
